What to Wear Author:Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V. AFTER THOUGHTS. I Suppose that what one does not say on any given subject may be of as much importance to the subject as that which one says. Especially... more » must this be true, when the habit of close prevision and revision, of attempting to meet every possible disputant under all possible emergencies, and to forestall any probable misunderstanding by all practicable precaution, which becomes such an occasion of earthly care and heavenly discipline to the writer, yields in part to the instinct of immediate persuasion which controls the speaker. Those views of the great need and peculiar claims of a dress reform which the opening sections of this pamphlet set forth have met, in connection with their previous appearance, with a kind of reception which has strengthened my belief in the growing interest felt in their subject, and has suggested to me that a few pages which shall treat of the objections with which they have been received may not come amiss either to reader or to author. These perilaps can be classified in four important points. 1. a. The extravagance of woman's dress has received insufficient attention, -b. The extravagance of woman's dress has been overrated. 2. The inherent love of beauty calls for more notice than it has found. 3. Upon the physiological questions involved, women require more minute enlightment. 4. The actual concession to the desire of attracting men in the selection of costume has been exaggerated. Perhaps the extravagant aspect of the dress question does not always fill its full importance in one's mind, because it seems to be more easily adjustable than some others. Settle a few other points which logically precede it, and it will duly and logically settle itself. When women dress gracefully, they will not dress extrava...« less